


Two Sharks in Hand (better than one in the deck)

by Irrelevancy



Series: badly, I know, but I live [11]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Ace and Sabo are both card sharks these are lucky's rules, Ace is a Bad Teacher, Bickering, Cardistry, Domestic Fluff, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Multi, No Sex, Threesome - M/M/M, but smutty ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:08:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22066030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Irrelevancy/pseuds/Irrelevancy
Summary: Marco struggles to learn a card trick, and one of his boyfriends is more helpful than the other.
Relationships: Fushicho Marco | Phoenix Marco/Portgas D. Ace/Sabo
Series: badly, I know, but I live [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1497290
Comments: 8
Kudos: 86





	Two Sharks in Hand (better than one in the deck)

**Author's Note:**

> Can you believe we're starting off the New Year with something _nearly_ safe for work???? But I saw [this gifset](https://touchmycoat.tumblr.com/post/189991898825) (dead!Sabo gives Luffy pointers on learning gomu gomu no pistol) and it broke my whole heart, so here's this.
> 
> in which i struggle to learn cardistry (thanks ofc to lucky) and needed somebody to commiserate with me

The handful of playing cards scattered to the floor again.

“That’s what, the fifth time?” Ace snickered, splitting and flipping his own deck deftly through his fingers while Marco busied himself picking up the scattered ones. Again. “Man, you are not great at this.”

“Thanks,” Marco muttered. There were streaks of paper-scored flesh all over his hands—no blood, but annoying topographical additions to his fingerprints. “It’s not like there’s pressure on me learning and perfecting this within the day or anything, yoi.”

“Yeah, but that’s your own fault.” It was a perfectly sound, perfectly accurate thing to point out. And _yet_. The little bunch of cards Marco had pinched into an arch between his fingers (practicing that stupid little _flourish_ Ace insisted was necessary for impersonating a card shark) went spitting once again back into the air. Ace groaned, flopping back onto the bed.

“Just one more time yoi, I swear.”

“Okay, but you _know_ it,” Ace whined. That was neither true nor untrue—sure, it only took one run for Marco to comprehend the how-many-splits-in-this-deck, the which-fingers-grab-which-deck, and the twist-left-turn-right configurations of this particular card cut. But that didn’t mean Marco knew it in the sense of being able to _do_ it.

Ace, on the other hand, had seen the cut done once, practiced it once, and now had the audacity to be _bored_ , after offering to teach Marco the damn trick.

Preempting the whispered complaint with an apologetic kiss to Marco’s cheek, Ace whispered, “well if I had known it was going to take this long...”

Knowing the cards were absolutely his enemy, Marco slapped them safely down on the bedside table before gesturing _insistently_ at the inn room window.

“It’s been _half_ _an hour_ , yoi. I think my rate of progress has been _perfectly_ reasonable.”

And then Ace made that face—that, _has it though?_ face—and Marco might’ve really had to dramatically storm out to reevaluate his life choices, had the room door not opened right then.

“...I see. Do you hate him yet?” Sabo asked upon a quick survey survey of the scene. Ace looked suspiciously relieved at Sabo’s arrival, and upon remembering the den den mushi call Ace had ducked out earlier to make, Marco’s mouth fell open in offended shock.

“You’re pawning me off after _half an hour_ —?”

“I don’t hate him,” Ace very earnestly told Sabo as he hopped into his feet. His hands were beautifully articulate as they demonstrated the cut, much too quickly— _again_ —to be of any help to Marco. “I just don’t see why he can’t—”

“Oh I wasn’t asking _you_ , dear.”

In the time it took for both Ace and Marco to process that, Sabo’s strolled his way in front of Marco and crossed his arms. The lean of his body though, was sympathetic.

“Show me,” he said, nodding at Marco’s deck. And with a noncommittally quirk of a brow, Marco picked the deck back up and did, at a much more sedated pace than Ace’s before. He ended up collapsing the deck at the same point he’s been losing the configuration of cards before, and sighed in frustration.

Expecting at best an, _ah_ or an, _I see what you’re doing wrong_ , Marco was shocked enough to—much to his embarrassment—drop another little stack of cards when the first words out of Sabo’s mouth were, “that was good.”

Ace made a noise of offense.

“No it wasn’t.”

“That was good for _half an hour_ of practice.” Marco didn’t think he’s ever been on this particular side of an Ace-versus-Sabo bicker, and felt quite dazed by it, fiddling absently with the cards as Sabo _defended_ him. From _Ace_. “And you’ve never done cardistry before, have you Marco? You’re doing fine, you’re just losing the tension in your middle and pinky finger.”

“Oh.” Marco blinked. “But how do I…?”

“Okay one more time, but slower.” With the order given in _that_ tone, Marco was much more obliged to follow, and happily settled into a glacial rhythm. Sabo just watched on with sharp eyes and no complaints.

“ _Slower._ ” That was Ace, sounding like his entire world order has just been toppled by heathens. “You’re not supposed to go slower, that’s against the whole point—”

“He’s trying to learn from scratch, of course you should start him slow—”

“—would just keep going quickly, he’ll pick it up—”

“—right, that’s totally how teaching works—”

“—works for _me_ —”

“—yeah, but you’re—”

Marco’s cards went flying again, and Sabo burst out in laughter. It was a big and _fond_ sound though, and Marco couldn’t find it in himself to take any offense when Sabo leaned down to catch his lips in a heated kiss.

“Hey, don’t listen to the prodigious bastard over there,” Sabo smirked against Marco’s mouth. He gathered up the spilt cards and replaced them in Marco’s hands, the tips of their noses never more than a hair’s breadth away. “He’s always been annoyingly fast at picking up _everything_. I’m glad you’re here to commiserate with me.”

Ace’s sputter of offense was accompanied by wild arm gesticulation. Had Marco done that, every single playing card would’ve shot out in different directions, before ricocheting back to cut up and bleed Marco to death. In Ace’s hands, they were tame as fucking puppies, and Marco thought he even saw one flip dexterously over the knuckles of three fingers before being tucked neatly into the center of the deck. Just casual.

“Okay, but you learned card cutting just as quickly as I did,” he accused. Sabo shrugged, maintaining eye contact with Marco as he shuffled the deck in Marco’s palm.

“I find your mediocrity in this task genuinely sexy,” was his solemn declaration.

“... _Thanks_ , yoi.” Making a face, Marco tried to shove the deck off fully into Sabo’s hands, ready to give up, but somehow the cards kept finding them back slotted against his palm. “Will you—Stop that!”

“Not until you get it.”

“I’m never going to get it—” Marco began to complain, just as Ace tossed his hands up in exasperation.

“Great! Sabo you teach him—”

“—so perfectly _mediocre_ —”

“—go find some food or something—”

“Ace,” Sabo called, releasing Marco entirely and taking a step back. The cards instantly felt like enemies in Marco’s grip again, and he wiggled them warily between his fingers. “You’re not going anywhere. You _started_ this. And _you_ —” While tinged with exasperation, Sabo’s gaze on Marco was genuinely nothing but encouraging. “—we’ll get you better than mediocre."

"Yeah? How?"

"Well, you always do well when properly incentivized.”

For the first time all afternoon, Ace and Marco found their synchronicity:

“Incentivized?”

“I _thought_ ,” Sabo said, furrowing his brow pointedly at Ace, “that’s why you called me here.”

Then he proceeded to hold up and _flex_ his gloved fingers in such a way that had _Ace_ ’s deck uh, shooting off unexpectedly.

“You’re right,” Ace said, voice newly guttural now as he approached, cards left carelessly strewn behind. “That’s definitely why I called you here. Stupid of me to forget.”

“And here I thought,” Marco’s voice had gone hoarse too, “you were going to be the _nice_ teacher.”

“Hey, I am nice.” With that wicked, wicked grin, Sabo pulled Ace into his arms, and proceeded to dip his fingers underneath belts and waistbands. He winked at deck of cards in Marco’s hand. “Go as slow as you need to. Your education comes first.”

(That didn’t end up being strictly true— _Ace_ came first. And second. And third. By the end of the night Marco _definitely_ got the hang of the cut, and everybody’s fingers were happily aching.)

**Author's Note:**

> Happy birthday to Ace!!!! He's really not a dick, but y'know how there's just that class of people in the world, that are so damn good at things that they just genuinely cannot comprehend normies (me) when you (I) need them to slow and break it down? Love him.
> 
> My [tumblr](https://touchmycoat.tumblr.com/) :D


End file.
